Epidemiology of cataract in clinical material of Department of Ophthalmology, Medical University of Łódź

Purpose
Analysis of some epidemiological features of patients operated for senile and presenile cataract at our department in years: 1992, 1994, 1997, 2000 and 2002.

Material and methods
In the analyzed years 4385 patients (1594 males and 2791 females) aged from 36 to 97 years were operated. The age of patients, sex, duration of cataract symptoms before surgery, preoperative visual acuity, type of cataract, place of living and coexistence of diabetes or high myopia, were taken into consideration.

Results
The mean age of patients was 70.4. A statistically significant difference between mean age in 1997 (69,7), and 2000 (71,6) and 2002 (71,4) was found. Women tended to be operated on 2 years later than men (mean age for women – 71.1, mean age for men – 69.1). 16% of patients suffered from diabetes, and 6.7% had high myopia. Senile cataract affected people with high myopia at earlier age (mean – 67.3 years). 67.5% of patients were of big town origin, 13% came from small towns and 19% were from the country. Patients from big towns were operated in higher age (mean – 72.4 years) than patients from small cities (mean -69.9 years), and from country (mean – 70.2 years) and had better visual acuity (mean – 0.20) than patients from small towns (mean – 0.16) and from country (mean – 0.13). Preoperative visual acuity in the range 0.4 – 1.0 was found in 0.4% of patients in 1992, and in 28% in 2002. The visual acuity <0.1was found in 77.5% of patients in 1992 and in 45% of patients in 2002.

Conclusions
Mean age of patients operated for cataract is increasing and there is a tendency of performing operations in cases with better visual acuity. Women suffer from cataract later than men. People of country origin were operated at earlier age with worse visual acuity comparing to patients coming from towns. Senile cataract affects people with high myopia at earlier age.